Black & White Battle Subway Records (now with gen. 4 records!)

After getting really frustrated I decided to attempt the Battle Subway. After breezing through the first 7 matches on the simple Single Train with non-EV'd mons(Swellow, Conkeldurr, Haxorus, the latter two were on my ingame team), I decided to EV my mons for the hell of it.

If your just trying to get through the simple single train (and not the super single train) then that team will probably be enough. I can't see it being to successful in the long run on the super train though. The teams defensive synergy could be better. Fighting types will be a problem if you can't kill them with swellow, ice types will be annoying if cloyster dies and rock types will be annoying if hydreigon loses. You may also want to get better natures, especially on swellow (though this only realy matters on the super trains)

Why are you using aerial ace on swellow? You should be using brave bird. If you can't be bothered breeding it on, then you could use fly (the opponent probably won't switch out on the second turn of the move so it's actually somewhat ok to use in the subway).

I know it's the copypasta of Peterko's gen IV Latias, but remember to check out the moves Latias has gained now (most notably guard split for high physical Def. opponents that you're looking Registeel to set up on).

I don't think much feedback can really be taken apart from trying to sub against Mamoswine was axiomatically the wrong play.

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Indeed, it was a waste of a turn... but then again, what could have Registeel done instead besides Iron Heading? Mamoswine would certainly 2HKO Registeel with Earthquake, so Registeel would only be able to land one hit (which won't OHKO anyway) since it is slower. The only way out would be to switch Registeel out with a Pokemon immune to Earthquake such as Latias (who unfortunately died) or something like Salamence.

Out of interest, why does Terrakion have a focus sash? It's an odd choice for a (rather bulky) set-up/ support pokemon. True it negates crits and (rare)OHKO moves (OHKO moves normally come from slow and bulky pokemon regardless), but if you're worried about hax then it's probably best to go with a lum berry.

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I haven't tried Lum Berry on Terrakion, but the Focus Sash has saved my streak in countless situations. When the opponent and I are both down to one Pokemon, if Terrakion is faster and can 2HKO the opponent (which happens more often than not), then it will win. Terrakion actually isn't that bulky since it has lots of weaknesses, so most Pokemon will carry moves that can 2HKO if not OHKO Terrakion. Indeed, there may well be a candidate better than Terrakion out there, but I have yet to experiment. Then again, if Terrakion had Lum Berry, I would play it differently, so I might not even have to end up in sticky situations where only a Focus Sash can save me.

I faced Roughneck Ganymed at least six times during my streak... it was ridiculous. As your streak goes up, you'll have to keep fighting opponents with teams designed to beat yours, so careful planning is needed to wriggle your way out of danger.

Lost again at 438. =( Same team, still aiming to top 626. Nice work so far Peterko, looking forward to seeing what else you came up with.

Coincidentally, I swapped to Protect on Hydra and Psyshock on Latios as well some time ago.

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Thanks and good job again, you have by far the longest subway doubles streaks out there...for the moment ;)

It would be nice to know how you lost that one.

Hopefully not the way I just almost did...by accidentally faking out my own latios for the first time since using this team, that´s like 2000 battles when I count soulsilver as well (don´t even know how that happened, probably because I was checking the movesets) against set 4 hippo, aggron, braviary & politoed and I would´ve lost had zoom lens focus blast not missed hydra, in the end I managed to finish off 49% cursed up hippo with dragon pulse and quake, toed blizzarded hydra away and next turn metagross´ full power quake finished toed...dmg calc wise it was pretty close... 10+(62to73)+10+(81to96)=163min dmg/170 HP, but I would´ve survived a hydro pump that turn...

anyway, I don´t switch lee that often because he always hits something hard before going down...having sucker and mach punch means it´s quite different from the way ape is played...

oh yeah I´ve finally made a printable version of the moveset list and trainer lists, also added the speed tiers so now I don´t have to play near the PC to check the sets all the time...as promised, I´ve started to use the lists after 175 this time and the team´s even better that way

If your just trying to get through the simple single train (and not the super single train) then that team will probably be enough. I can't see it being to successful in the long run on the super train though. The teams defensive synergy could be better. Fighting types will be a problem if you can't kill them with swellow, ice types will be annoying if cloyster dies and rock types will be annoying if hydreigon loses. You may also want to get better natures, especially on swellow (though this only realy matters on the super trains)

Why are you using aerial ace on swellow? You should be using brave bird. If you can't be bothered breeding it on, then you could use fly (the opponent probably won't switch out on the second turn of the move so it's actually somewhat ok to use in the subway).

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I just defeated the Simple one. Changes were that I put Haxorus(one I used for my ingame run) over Cloyster and Hydreigon has a Life Orb instead. I didn't use Brave Bird because Swellow doesn't have much bulk, and Fly has bad synergy with Toxic Orb.

I just started on the Super train, and goddamnit everyone suddenly has bulky Pokemon like Kangaskhan and Blastoise >.>. Time to get serious.

I haven't really had my major cracks at the Battle Subway yet, call me old fashioned but I'm one of those guys that still tries to complete everything in-game while still playing competitively. I just have to finish the Pokédex now and then I've got the final Trainer Card upgrade :)

Regardless, I've obviously still done the 49 streaks in both Super Singles and Super Doubles and just used rather basic teams, while training for VGC. I found this to be effective at getting to 49 wins, and I only ran into trouble once during my run through my run (I can't remember what happened exactly but I'm sure I misplayed and ended up with Hydreigon against a bulky Water-type last. I got a flinch with Dark Pulse to win.

Now, I didn't design this to work for the Subway, the EVs were used for other purposes and I didn't want to change them. But I'd probably give Tornadus some HP / Def EVs, Jellicent more HP EVs and probably more HP EVs for Hydreigon as well if I carried on with a Choice Scarf set. I actually had Protect over Flamethrower on Hydreigon w/ Choice Scarf for the majority of this run because I kept forgetting to change it (lol).

The basic idea is to hit things hard with the leads, only bothering to Tailwind against the hyper fast things. Taunt can stop Trick Room setting up in general due to no Pokémon in the Subway having Mental Herb. Substitute was filler and it's a bit risky trying to predict if the opponent is using a status move, but Terrakion can usually knock something out which allows your Sub to scout which version of a Pokémon (or mons) you're up against (I don't recall getting double targeted often anyway?). Quick Guard was left on to deal with Fake Out leads, but you can generally Protect with Terrakion and switch in Jellicent anyway if you wish to receive no damage, or just go to Scarf Hydreigon so you can take something out thanks to Choice Scarf. For this reason I'd probably replace Quick Guard with Earthquake, Safeguard, or Quick Attack. They're all good shouts so I don't know which would suit the team best.

I would like to replace Choice Scarf on Hydreigon to allow more freedom, but this can make the Lati twins more of a problem. Haban Berry or Yache Berry should be a safe bet, as Jellicent can usually deal with Fighting-types anyway. My only worry is that if I didn't Tailwind, Hydreigon can get caught out rather easily. The Choice Scarf was definitely the deciding factor in a handful of games. Surf + Water Spout is usually effective.

So, that's my 49 Doubles team. I'm not sure if I'll continue to use it, or just go with something new from the 49 mark onwards. Same for Singles but I'll post that team another time, probably when I actually get further.

Moderator

As I had nothing else to really do during the trip to my vacation spots and all that, I decided to give Battle Subway a crack (more specifically, Super Doubles). After testing a few things and failing miserably a few times, I managed to break 100 with the following team.

Super Doubles Line
Streak: 119 (and still going)
Unfortunately I don't have my cam with me right now so I can't prove my streak, so you're just going to have to trust me on this. I'm posting this atm because I'm about to switch into Singles...and I don't know what I want to use. If only Switcheroo + Memento isn't illegal on Whimsicott...well idk I think I'll stick with something like Uxie/Haxorus/Registeel or something. ANYWAYS, back to the team...

This is a simple "kill-all" lead since I haven't figured out anything that cheats Doubles (Singles line has that Trick -> set up abuse thing), and they just work so well so I hope it doesn't need much explanation. Actually considering how often this combo is mentioned in the thread, well...you know the drill by now I suppose! I'm considering Psyshock > Psychic but I honestly don't know so I'll just stick with this for now. Anyways, I'm just maximizing coverage here, and tossing Protect on Latios since he has a filler space lol. Also, Infernape's Heat Wave is incredibly useful and I'm not sure why it's not mentioned lol. Anyways, these two usually take out the entire opposing team.

I requested Krook from muffinhead for VGC use. Unfortunately, I decided to change my team and it was never used as a result. Well until now.

Krookodile is like a glue of sorts. It provides a neat Ghost resistance, Intimidate support, revenge killing capability, awesome spread moves, and Electric immunity (go away, Thunder Wave). Originally, I was taken back by the prospect of Choiced Earthquakes - especially with two Ground weaks of my own, but often times it is manageable. Krookodile surpassed my expectations in this format and should hopefully maintain that for the upcoming matches.

I don't know what to use for the last slot to be honest. It came with Low Sweep and I never bothered to change it. I'm considering throwing Stone Edge over it because Rock Slide isn't exactly powerful.

Metagross may as well be suicide with Meteor Fail and Hammer Miss as its strongest attacking moves, but they do their job. I chose MM > Iron Head due to the increased power, and the disappointing accuracy hasnt put me off (yet...). Hammer Arm is there because I'm not about to use more Earthquake and tearing my team apart in the process...and is great for taking down those Walreins and Laprases lol. Thunderpunch idk, but it does hit waters and provide Metagross with 100% acc move....I considered Bullet Punch because priority is neat but meh. TPunch has been pretty helpful since 2/4 of my team is weak to Water!

Metagross is here for its resistances and bulk, so often times he can afford a miss. I only usually send him out to tank stuff if I have to - he definitely has the least amount of screen time than the former three.

**

So far, only two matches were troublesome. One was a matchup against some guy with Flareon who somehow managed to beat me down till Metagross, in which Overheat missed and got me a win. That was early on. Later on though, my closest match was against a mono-Ice where I just played badly and ended up with a faceoff between Metagross and SC/Fissure/Rest/Talk Brightpowder Walrein. Walrein survives Krook's EQ (Krook then dies later to Glaceon's Blizzard, who then dies to Metagross' TPunch) + Meta's Steel Gem Meteor Mash. Metagross dodged one Sheer Cold but missed Thunderpunch against the near dead Walrein and had to watch Walrein Rest while the RNG rolled....eventually, Walrein was 2hkoed by Hammer Arm and missed yet another Sheer Cold.

I didn't use Brave Bird because Swellow doesn't have much bulk, and Fly has bad synergy with Toxic Orb.

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Well if that's how you feel then that's fine. I guess aerial ace does have the advantage of ignoring double team (double team + confuse ray regigigas is particularly annoying). Of course, if I was running swellow I would use brave bird because swellow is too frail to survive many hits and therefore doesn't give a damn about the recoil.

Well if that's how you feel then that's fine. I guess aerial ace does have the advantage of ignoring double team (double team + confuse ray regigigas is particularly annoying). Of course, if I was running swellow I would use brave bird because swellow is too frail to survive many hits and therefore doesn't give a damn about the recoil.

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The main purpose is for Swellow to puncture as many holes in the opponent's team as possible before dying, such that Hydreigon or Haxorus can then come in and clean up.

I think I should have risked a second protect turn 7 with hydra, but those two slide flinches when I was attacking rock with dragon pulse were decisive...maybe my lee play was too careful with the very (for me) unusual mach punching there, I seriously thought rock would superpower lee, I don´t think I´ve faced this rock (I may have but KOed before it could do anything) and even ttar superpowers lee...lol and viri protect owning me there turn 5 (didn´t check its set and probably should´ve just bullet punched it to death right away as it does 51-61 dmg which means 30,7-36,7% dmg...ugh

oh well, I´ll get back up there by wednesday/thursday...the Ape vs Lee rivalry isn´t over

Using my new Steel on Drag-Mag, I managed to beat my old streak and I'm going strong (past 105 [while my previous record with Magnezone was 86]). I'll update when I lose.

After using Latios enough, I feel a lot more confident about its ability (save the misses on Draco Meteor) and thanks ChineseDood for helping me realize how awesome ExtremeSpeed is on Dragonite

Edit: Almost just lost to 4 Rock Slide flinches in a row, but I said "Fuck your Subway hax" and continued my streak

Edit 2: I love you GameFreak for changing the mechanics to "whoever faints last wins" because that team had 2 Destiny Bond users and I would've lost had it been DPP, but thankfully that system is more fair now and I'm making a fantastic record

FUCK THIS HAX FUCK THIS HAX FUCK THIS HAX FUCK THIS HAX .04% chance of happening

Heatran is better than Magnezone. No Steel-type resists all 3 of Heatran's attacks, and it's faster and has more natural bulk. A Water weakness isn't appreciated but it certainly isn't crippling either. The lack of a Rock resist hasn't changed circumstances much at all but adding a Fire immunity (with benefits) is unnecessary but helpful at times

This is not the first time I have lost an impressive streak to my biggest Subway enemy, Starmie (it was even the same moveset). (Note: Don't tell me to use Magnezone instead of Heatran because Starmie is my biggest enemy, because Starmie is only my biggest enemy in that it gets insane hax to ruin my streaks)

I also want to say that now that I've had so much success using hyper offense, I'm probably never going back to the boring and extremely time consuming "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep strategy"

(Credit for sprites goes to http://pokemonelite2000.com/sprites.html
Credit for Drag-Mag idea goes to Thorns
Credit for the "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep strategy" term goes to skiz0phrenic :P)

Edit @ T.L. - Magnezone just seemed to fit so well that I didn't really question its place. And since I was using Magnet Pull for a while, that did the opposite of show me that it was useless because I had no idea how much it was or wasn't working so I figured it was doing something. And considering how much time and effort I put into Drapion (along with some friends assisting) and other "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep strategy" sweepers, it was pretty much a waste of a lot of time and effort compared to hyper offense like my new team

I also want to say that now that I've had so much success using hyper offense, I'm probably never going back to the boring and extremely time consuming "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep strategy"

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I also think you weren't cut out for the job in the first place either. Calling Drapion terrible and all that nonsense. =)

Btw, for someone who had earned over 2k BPs it sure took you long time to figure out that Magnet Pull Magnezone was useless since the opponent ~never switches. :o I think that ~95% of all the switches I've witnessed have been switches to Water Absorb pokemon when I had used Waterfall the turn before the switch.

I've actually tried Super Single Line 3 times after the 185 win streak and here are the results.

1st try: lost somewhere between 80-90 wins. Opponent had Taunt Thundurus as a starter and it made my Whimsicott cry (It actually gave me some hope as it Volt Switched out after I brought in my Drapion. What actually came out was a Electrode who just boomed and there Thundurus was again to prevent me from setupping).

2nd try: lost just after 100 wins. I (was too greedy and) tried to sub with Drapion when I just should have Crunched (I was facing a Granbull (Charmed 2 or 3 times) with Roar and Drapion had Acupressured a few times at least boosts to Evasion, SpA and Accuracy iirc). Both had 3 pkmns left at that time (opponent had at least a Cryogonal). Can't remember how the match went after the Roar, but I do remember thinking afterwards that I would have won the match if I had used Crunch).

3rd try: lost between 120-130 (124 was the exact win count before the loss iirc) wins. I tried to Stun Spore a starter Zapdos (910 I think) and it Tbolted (CH and para). Fully paralyzed, so no Memento and then Drapion (and Bibarel lol) didn't stand a chance.

I'll probably give this team one more try before breeding another Singles team / my first proper Doubles team as I have a few ideas in my mind for both.

EDIT: Actually now that I think harder there was another try, a humiliating under 49 wins loss to Quiver Dancing Volcarona, before or just after the 1st try I listed.

Yes and I think it's terrible really. Your Sky Drop user can only target the immobile Pokémon and if you want a bulky Gravity user to be able to survive and set it up multiple times, they will have limited offensive capability, same thing applies to a speedy Sky Drop user

I didn't go into much depth on it but I think you might as well not do it, especially considering the preexisting abundance of good Doubles teams

Edit @ Ashenlock: You described the "cripple-things-for-one-teammate-to-sweep strategy" team but you didn't use that specific term, I was really just being humorous though

seriously... why didn´t cune just surf metagross is beyond my understanding of the AI, maybe the AI´s just that sadistic to freeze me twice instead of KOing me right away...right after that in the next set

snow cloak and blizzard is by far the worst shit there is in the subway, there´s no way winning against worker valéry or roman if you keep missing lass/bear/mamo/glace, I had such a crazy battle saved (it was #351) with a showdown between hydra and mamo but then I erased it with #391 before writing down what happened

next streak...

#47 vs depot agent...beat two electrics but then „r-ant“ OHKOed meta with a CH power herb dig (which made me lol) and later jolt yawned hydra the turn it OHKOed ant, didn´t wake up and jolt won with thunder

that made me want to stop using the team for a while (I want aura sphere!!!)...I continued my singles streak (I sat at 154 with latias-registeel-garchomp for over a month) and played battles #155-168, it took 1 hour...twice as long as doubles would, awful, so I went back to doubles, at 49 now (145 battles today is enough)...

After my 132 streak I've lost like 3 times because I wasn't paying enough attention and I've lost 3 times by some reason or another to Drapion, (which I literally cannot recall seeing once until after my 132 streak with this team,) I just can't get back in the groove.

Also Peterko, why are you using Psyshock on Latios? Unless you have some very specific reason, it seems like a bad choice

@Zacchaeus: Notably Psyshock hits Blissey and Cryogonal for a lot more damage. Others with weaker defense than special defense too I'm sure, but basically having a move that will allow for covering weak def pokemon without having to use physical attacks can be situationally useful.

I think it's more needed for Single than double though. Like for your team, if Dragonite faints, Blissey will wall the rest of your team, since Choice Specs Psychic will only do 29% max to 252 HP 252 Def Bold Blissey (the Calm Mind one), whereas Choice Specs Psyshock does 50-59%, a clean 3HKO and chance to 2HKO. Then there's the Blisseys that have softboiled.

Also, not sure if you might want to give this a try. I used a similar Heatran before (recently) but had Toxic instead of Flash Cannon for the annoying stat boosters and double teamers (and Blissey). Flash Cannon does provide a bit extra neutral coverage though of course, but yeah, for my team Toxic was just more useful.

EDIT: O yeah, as for myself, I haven't really been playing. Too busy. Will get back to stuff soon... I hope anyway.

Indeed, it was a waste of a turn... but then again, what could have Registeel done instead besides Iron Heading? Mamoswine would certainly 2HKO Registeel with Earthquake, so Registeel would only be able to land one hit (which won't OHKO anyway) since it is slower. The only way out would be to switch Registeel out with a Pokemon immune to Earthquake such as Latias (who unfortunately died) or something like Salamence.

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You're mistake was going for Dragon pulse after trick. If you'd used trick> charm>charm then latias would have survived to charm mamoswine, then Registeel wins 1v1 (although substituting would still have been the wrong move).

I don't ~like~ dragon pulse on latias partly for this reason, you could have gone with flash or guard split instead. I suppose DP can also be helpful. The real engima is what is more helpful. That applies to both Terrakion and Latias. And I do like the overall synergy Terrakion brings - but it's not ideal for both Registeel and Terrakion to be weak to both fight- and ground- types. Terrakion is great in 6v6 play, and that's the biggest trap. I just think in 3v3 it has too many weakness and is too slow. Well done on the streak anyways~

fat peterko said:

seriously... why didn´t cune just surf metagross is beyond my understanding of the AI, maybe the AI´s just that sadistic to freeze me twice instead of KOing me right away...right after that in the next set.

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My best bet is that the behaviour of the AI changes pre-49 to post-49 similarly to the way the list of available pokemon changes. You probably won't have much experience with "close" 1-49 battles, but the AI does do things like EQ Latios and use recover at 95%. It's probably just picking a random move, and then applies more "thought" or "logic" to it's choices post-49, so that the challenge gets harder. That's very gamefreak-esque coding in my opinion.

And actually, a completely random opponent can be much more dangerous than a more "good and predictable" one, just because smart players will make assumptions based on what "should happen", then the opponent just does something utterly ridiculous.

And I have no idea how you have that much endurance >_<

fat chinese dood said:

@Zacchaeus: Notably Psyshock hits Blissey and Cryogonal for a lot more damage. Others with weaker defense than special defense too I'm sure, but basically having a move that will allow for covering weak def pokemon without having to use physical attacks can be situationally useful.

I think it's more needed for Single than double though. Like for your team, if Dragonite faints, Blissey will wall the rest of your team, since Choice Specs Psychic will only do 29% max to 252 HP 252 Def Bold Blissey (the Calm Mind one), whereas Choice Specs Psyshock does 50-59%, a clean 3HKO and chance to 2HKO. Then there's the Blisseys that have softboiled.

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That's correct, but what's also important is the comparison of psychic vs dragon pulse to psyshock vs dragon pulse:

Dragon pulse < psychic almost always. The exception is what psychic hits SE and even then, it's preferable to be locked into Dragon pulse. This raises the question: why psychic at all? Going with ice-, electric-, fire (hp) would give better coverage and would probably be used more. Hence Psychic is next to useless.

Dragon pulse ~ psyshock. The psychic typing of the move is still an inferiority. However, as Chinese dood rightly said, psyshock smashes Blissey, Snorlax and friends. Furthermore it can be said that (mostly) psyshock < psychic because most of the SE recipients of the psychic- move will have a lower base defense stat.

Literally the only advantage psychic has over psyshock is the extra 10 base power and the fact that it hits Harriyama, Weezing, Poliwrath harder. Latios is so gosu that it probably doesn't even matter, I'd imagine choice specs Dragon pulse OHKOs around 80% of the subway.

Blissey has not once been a problem for me in Subway even with 2 special attackers and Cryogonal isn't bulky enough to take hits from any of my team. People always say that Psychic is a bad offensive type but I won 132 battles and I highly doubt I would've gone any farther had I used HP Fire or what have you. And using 2 Dragon moves would really limit my coverage so Dragon Pulse isn't really usable in my opinion

Edit @ Peterko and everyone else: As soon as our calculator is updated with Subway sets (like the DPP calculator has Tower sets) I'll run a bunch to see if it really is worth it. Until then I'm running Psychic unless I encounter some huge ingame letdown

updated the list and revamped the listing format a bit...which gets me to Chinese Dood, dude you´ve got way too many >70 super single streaks and that collides with my new listing format :D, maybe I should restrict myself to list only max 3 records or something like that ;)

Psyshock is better than Psychic on Latios (I think)...I won´t get into much detail, but basic logic tells you that if you hit something neutral, you should always use dragon pulse instead of psychic

...psyshock one hits gallade for example plus there´s a lot pokémon that have a >12,5% higher sD than def (90 base psychic is 12,5% stronger than 80 base psyshock), jolteon will sometimes survive a psychic/dpulse but never a psyshock, venusaur is another good one, the most frequent set4 has max sD and may live through psychic (low % I think) but not p-shock...but I don´t use the move that often anyway, it´s pretty situational

in that battle I hoped it would OHKO crap base def virizion when in fact two of its sets have max defense...only set4 survives a psychic attack from specs latios as its stats are 198HP/136def/149sD lol which means psychic has only a slightly better % to OHKO (you need rand. 90-100 in the dmg formula, so it´s a 68,75% chance) than psyshock (you need rand. 92-100 = 56,25% chance) but no OHKO still sucks... hmm now that I think about it, both moves OHKO terrakion and let´s see cobalion
1. bold HP/sD (198/163/124) -> psychic outdamages by a lot, but doesn´t OHKO, I have CC/quake/thrower for this guy anyway
2. brave HP/atk -> survives both
3. & 4. both jolly atk/speed -> psychic actually has a 37,5% chance to OHKO, that´s interesting

thund/torna are even more ridiculous, specs dpulse has a 37,5% chance to OHKO thund 2,3,4 & tornadus 1,4 (if you don´t feel like locking into bolt), which means more room for random numbers to have fun with you (btw. psyshock has a 25% chance to OHKO those)..plus there´s the one point speed difference ._.

...actually I´ve recently started to doubt the moveset of latios (a bit)...I use bolt against gyarados (not a real threat), against zong/meta if needed, sometimes against stupid drifblim (doesn´t always OHKO lol)...it´s quite important against the ocassional esca lead (FO+bolt+bolt/CC)...

I don´t know, my biggest concern remains froslass, it almost always survives (87,5% chance) a sucker punch or uses hail and I miss or holds sash and worst thing is that it speed ties with latios...those ice teams are ridiculous (sand isn´t as bad because sand workers only use the mono ground chomp1)...roman/valéry can only use 10 pokémon, 1 is auto-hail and 4 are potential snow cloaks, I´m not even talking about brightpowder set4, sash set3 and QC set1 blizzard always snow cloak glaceon, that´s the worst pokémon in the double subway metagame

one of these days, I will learn the legendary movesets and the damage output of my team against them, because judging from my experience in almost 1500 subway battles with it, legendary teams and ice teams are the main threats

Gah, I need to stop thinking about Subway teams and actually get a record on the board -_-

@Peterko, what do Hail teams usually do to your Metagross? Also, at a glance it sorta looks like Hydreigon is the weak link in your team, if only for it's middling speed. I'm not going to question your setup as you clearly know what you're doing, but perhaps toying around with a replacement for him to counter your Hail team weakness could be something to look at? Just a thought.

@Peterko: Lol, haha, feel free to just limit to top 3, or if you want, I can edit my posts lumping the lower ones all together so that you can just have an "Other 70+ streaks" link.

Up to you! :P

EDIT: About Adaptability Swift... that's interesting. I originally thought "Damage output isn't that great probably?" But then I realized, a Zapdos/Thundurus Discharge is basically 80 * 1.5 * 3/4 = 90, which is same as Adaptability Swift's 60 * 2 * 3/4 = 90. Discharge only ever KOs things that it hits for super effective though, but yeah I guess Swift could be useful sometimes. At first I was thinking it wouldn't be much better than using Hyper Voice for Hydreigon, but then that's actually only 90 * 3/4 = 67... Anyway, it's not that great of an option, I think, but there are some uses in situations. If P-Z got Hyper Voice, then that would be pretty amazing.

@Peterko, what do Hail teams usually do to your Metagross? Also, at a glance it sorta looks like Hydreigon is the weak link in your team, if only for it's middling speed. I'm not going to question your setup as you clearly know what you're doing, but perhaps toying around with a replacement for him to counter your Hail team weakness could be something to look at? Just a thought.

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metagross can´t take constant blizzard spam of the likes of glaceon (no pokémon does, unless you´re thick fat walrein lol), they always hit, freeze you and avoid your attacks or they´re able to take an iron head...

well, the position of hydra belonged to timid bolt/heat wave/hp ice/detect zapdos in soulsilver and both of them have something going for them...hydra´s dark typing and STAB dark pulse, also flamethrower is a big plus, I think game freak knew a bit what they were doing by making hydra, when they saw all the new ghosts and psychics (psychic types are one of the most versatile and thus difficult to beat types in the game), but the speed (outsped by all 6 new legends) is just wrong...zapdos is and always will be an awesome pokémon, but heat waving snow cloak when going for a longer streak is kind of "you asked for it" bad...also I´m kind of waiting for dream world zap with lightningrod (!)

yes there are situations when I wish my back row was faster or that meta hit harder, I will consider other possibilities...the explosion nerf (meta) is more important than I initially thought

@ Chinese Dood: feel free to do so, or let it be, it´s your decision, you´re one of the most active users in this topic so I don´t mind that much ;)

all this time I thought adaptability was a 50% boost plus STAB (so 2,25x total), apparently it´s really just double STAB so 12,5% weaker than I thought...but a 205spA adaptability tri attack is only 12,5% weaker than specs latios dragon pulse (if the mechanics were as I imagined, they would have exactly the same neutral dmg output)

discharge hits for SE damage and paralyzes, but it limits the partner choice to ground type/positive electric ability, on the other hand swift always hits which is nice

with "Z" I´d go tri attack/swift/bolt/beam or something...yeah but that was just an idea when I was searching for potential multi-target move users, the fact that snow cloak is a big deal right now made me remember swift (also aura sphere luca, for that matter)

btw. the thing I was talking about some days ago, what became usable in BW was anger point...I built an anger management team with tailwind/spore/frost breath smeargle and protect/quake/slide/frustration tauros, behind them were specslatios and LOtyphlo, I didn´t think the team through yet so I didn´t get very far with it...it was funny that the AI´s last pokémon was 1. thick fat snorlax 2. kingdra when my last one was typhlo...

I played max +speed smeargle (139) and adamant one speed less (138) tauros (chople then lum), rest in HP for survivability...

the only other option for a strategy like this is primeape, but its defenses are weaker...and it doesn´t learn drain punch which would be awesome...according to my research, only articuno is able to tailwind/frost breath beside smeargle, jolly arti hits 150 speed which is better, but it has a much higher spA (base 95) and gets STAB on frost breath so it damages the partner quite a lot while smeargle has base 20 spA lol...I´m not sure if a storm throwing throh is a viable option (100 base atk, STAB SE on tauros, no tailwind)...